On 7 and 8 September the Research Staff Representatives Committee hosted Town Hall meetings for research staff to discuss King’s Behaviours with Evelyn Welch and Robert Lechler and the King’s Behaviours project team.

We heard some great examples of behaviours that research staff find helpful, such as a department that meets regularly over tea and cake to get to know each other; team meetings where PIs share insights into their current work; and academics who invest time and energy in research staff development. There were also examples of when things go wrong – often unintentionally – which result, for example, in people feeling isolated, or in decisions being made in a way that does not feel transparent and fair to all staff.

We were asked who King’s Behaviours are for and whether they would be mandatory

King’s is made up of its people; our behaviour has an impact on our own and our colleagues’ experience of work, as well as the experience of our students.

King’s Behaviours is a framework to support the success of all individuals at King’s, whether they are research staff, academic staff, professional services or students. It is intended to empower people to reflect on their strengths and to think about how they can be even more successful their work and interactions with others.

The framework is not intended to be a top-down code of conduct to which people need to conform. Identifying the behaviours that we already do well and those that we aspire to will help to facilitate robust yet collegiate debate, and help us develop ourselves and support the development of others. It is intended to be a shared language which encourages individuality, creativity, debate and freedom of expression, but also provides a basis to constructively challenge unhelpful approaches.

We were asked how people could engage with the evolution of King’s Behaviours

We have approached identifying King’s Behaviours as a discussion across the King’s community including academics, researchers, professional services and students. The behaviours you see in the green paper emerged from real examples of behaviours identified by nearly 100 members of the King’s community which have been anonymised and made more broadly applicable. For more information on how this was achieved, please see the green paper.

At the time of writing, over 350 staff and students have responded to the survey on the green paper. This feedback will be reflected in the next iteration of the behaviours and a summary will be published on the intranet. We will continue to work collaboratively with the King’s community on the evolution of the behaviours through the autumn term and beyond.

We were asked how the behaviours would be embedded into our day-to-day lives at King’s

King’s Behaviours will be incorporated into processes to help us develop ourselves and our teams, recruit new staff, and other people processes. We are asking where we should prioritise implementing King’s Behaviours in the survey.

The green paper is a detailed document, because we would like feedback on the full framework. However, when King’s Behaviours is introduced into processes, the tools will be based on the framework but will be more easily digestible. We are exploring a range of training and self-assessment approaches to help people get the most out of King’s Behaviours.

Earlier this year I was one-half of a research collaboration which set out to investigate the experiences of LGBTQ+ doctoral researchers in the UK. This project came out of last year’s Vitae International Researcher Development Conference where a small group of delegates shared their personal experiences. It was clear that there were issues to be addressed but little evidence had been gathered from which to start a conversation on a sector-wide basis.Though this project was aimed at doctoral researchers, it’s emerging findings may also resonate with research staff.

Studies of LGBTQ+ students and staff have been undertaken but doctoral students are either absent from these reports or lumped in with ‘students’ or ‘postgraduates’; the latter including a much larger Masters cohort. The question we had was whether there was anything in the PhD experience which created or exacerbated challenges for LGBTQ+ students. So I and my co-investigator, Kieran Fenby-Hulse of Coventry University, launched a survey which gathered responses from 224 current PhD students from 47 UK Institutions.

The stories the responses told were rich and varied, heartening and disheartening, and too numerous to do justice to here. Collating and summarising the responses has not been straight-forward as we attempt to balance identifying common issues while respecting the unique nature of each person’s experience. We did not, for instance, want to artificially categorise respondents’ identities for the purposes of running correlations. We also did not want to dismiss experiences via statistics; e.g. that only 1.3% of our respondents said that they know for certain that their primary supervisor is not LGBTQ+ friendly could be presented as a positive finding for the sector, losing the fact that, just in our relatively small sample, there are three people currently going through that experience.

As for our findings, they are still taking their final shape but some common themes are emerging: There are issues of awareness within many people’s research environment; that heteronormative, cisnormative and binary gender assumptions (unless corrected) can lead to issues faced by LGBTQ+ doctoral students remaining side-lined. Many respondents commented on the invisibility of LGBTQ+ role models in their field and the subsequent question of whether one needed to fit-in to progress. The challenges of operating in an international environment came out clearly; where students are expected to research, attend conferences, collaborate with or look for jobs in areas of the world that are culturally and/or legally LGBTQ+ hostile. Explicit homo- and trans-phobia still raises its head and the role of senior staff in either enabling or challenging such behaviour was clear. Where the supervisory team fits in to this picture (indeed, for some, the question of whether it does at all) was the issue that divided our respondents most.

We are aware that the majority of the issues raised are not PhD specific and hope that our findings will have wider relevance. We also are conscious of not just seeking the problems people face and are keen to recognise those LGBTQ+ students whose experience of doctoral study has been an open and positive one.

The results of the study will be submitted for publication in the next couple of months and a full report will be released in early 2018.

If you are interested in carrying out a similar study about the experiences of LGBTQ+ research staff, please contact ross.english@kcl.ac.uk.

As a Black Minority & Ethnic (BME) female scientific Early Career Researcher (ECR), I had always wondered why BME staff are under-represented in academic posts at lecturer grades and above in both STEM and non-STEM subjects. Prior to working in Diversity & Inclusion I had not seen any data, but heard people talking about it, I however, did not fully appreciate the magnitude of it. When the opportunity arose to begin to understand the challenges of under representation under the then Manager Ms Debbie Epstein (Diversity & Inclusion Team), I jumped at the opportunity and began to quickly realise, that one reason could be since there are not many role models, many BME ECR staff would not apply and some that did apply and were unsuccessful gave up, after the first attempt.

Looking back, I have been extremely fortunate as a researcher within the different institutions I have worked at, I put that down to having supervisors and mentors, that have always supported me. I feel it is my duty to give back and that is why I have become a mentor. I love being a mentor as it is so rewarding. Being an award winning scientist, encourages my mentees, both PhD scientists and undergraduates wishing to pursue a career in science.

King’s as an institution sees under-representation of BME staff as one the key priorities to tackle, in order that we can enrich our academic community and provide role models for future generations of academics and researchers. We have initiatives such as the Athena Swan and Race Equality Charter Marks which focuses on gender and race equality respectively. We also have a new King’s Diversity Mentoring Scheme which is open to academic and professional services staff from diverse groups, prioritising those with at two protected characteristics.

With the support of the Principal and senior Leaders such as Chris Mottershead (Diversity & Inclusion Champion) we aimed to address this by delivering the first ever conference of its kind, i.e. ‘BME ECR how to stay in academia’, providing key tools to help us stay in academia. Tools such as applying for fellowships, the power of mentoring, the importance of networking and finally, prioritising caring for health and well-being! The theme of the day was to be Positive, Practical and Pragmatic (3P’S) to empower the delegates to be bold and take the next steps.

Briefly, there were two sessions, the morning session started with an opening address from the Principal, followed by BME academics from King’s and various Universities within London and UK, all invited to talk about their experiences and to give the delegates some advice. The afternoon session was more interactive with workshops which covered the above tools required to stay in academia. Networking was encouraged throughout the day.

It was a well-attended conference consisting of undergraduate students, PhD students, ECR, academic BME and non-BME staff, also invited guests and some members of staff that heard about the program and wanted to be inspired by seeing and hearing BME academics come together in one space, the Great Hall, the space really did live up to its name.

There were so many positive feedbacks, one which really stood out is as follows “It was a relief to have what felt like a private, personal ‘failing’ identified, named and reframed. The description of the speaker’s successes was very inspirational. We came away feeling validated, with important tips and ideas for personal development and certainly empowered. The quality, format of the day, choice of speakers and food were all excellent”.

My only hope is that this is the beginning of things to come, such gathering provides a powerful & inspirational message to ECR. This model needs to be embedded in various University cultures, only then will we begin to witness a steady increase in BME staff in academia.

Mention of the Athena SWAN Charter is likely to provoke an array of responses from university staff and students, which can range from subdued pride in the hard work of a Self-Assessment Team (SAT) that leads to awards (bronze, silver or gold), or a thinly veiled rolling of the eyes as in ‘oh not that again’. Despite the various individual opinions, Athena SWAN has undoubtedly become a renowned vehicle for change within universities in the UK.

Our Athena SWAN journey at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience started in 2012 and as we looked at a number of different types of data from across the faculty, a pattern emerged of gender inequalities. For example, at the IoPPN around 65% of our postdocs were women, yet the numbers more than halved at professor level. Why was this? Initial arguments we faced were that women were ‘off having babies’ and ‘were less ambitious’ and when we raised the issue of implicit bias potentially playing a role we were told ‘scientists have no biases’. As we delved deeper, it was clear that biases and other systematic barriers meant that at a number of critical stages across academic careers, we were not retaining women.

Over the last five years our SAT, Postdoc Network and Research Innovation Committee have been addressing some of these issues in a number of ways:

Raising profile of role models through Inspiring Women portraits and Women in Mind interview series

Diversity and inclusion training on various topics such as Implicit Bias, Dealing with Microagressions (subtle bullying tactics), Intercultural Communications and Imposter Syndrome

Although the Athena SWAN charter previously focused on removing inequities women faced in STEMM careers, it has evolved to include broader gender identities and also to consider how gender intersects with other protected characteristics (intersectionality). Along with King’s Race Equality Charter and Stonewall award, we too have broadened our remit and are working on diversity and inclusion using an intersectional lens, which should benefit a broader range of people.

With the launch of King’s 2029 strategy, our work on creating a diverse and inclusive environment has become imperative.

What can you do? Here are four things we can all do:

Understand our biases and learn how they manifest in the working environment

Use inclusive language – who are we excluding?

Get involved in some of our activities, give us feedback so we can improve

Be an active bystander – speak up if you notice bias or discrimination

At a research-intensive organisation such as King’s, it is important that ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ do not remain in the hallways of HR. Research staff, although distinct in their roles, face many of the same diversity challenges on an operational level as other types of university staff, most perceptibly in the low levels of female or BME representation at more senior levels. This also extends to other challenges such as the persistence of low levels of disclosures around key protected characteristics such as disability and sexual orientation (and a further silence around why this might occur), the difficulties facing working parents as well as other structural issues such as unclear and informal reporting procedures around bullying and harassment.

In recent years there have been marked efforts to create a more inclusive working environment for all staff, including research staff. Mentoring schemes, such as the Diversity Mentoring Scheme at King’s have sought to provide female, trans and non-binary, BME mentees from often marginalised backgrounds an exceptional and unique opportunity to meet with a more experienced and trained mentor to identify, define and progress towards professional goals that will enhance their career progression, regardless of whether they want to stay in academia or pursue a career path beyond academia. Many mentees have spoken about how the experience has boosted their confidence and helped them identify and reach their professional goals.

King’s prides itself on being a leader and innovator in Higher Education diversity and inclusion by championing such schemes as the Diversity Mentoring Scheme, but there is always more that can be done. I feel that our challenge will be transforming good intentions and goodwill into positive, meaningful personal action in sufficient volume to create sustainable organisational change. On a practical level, this means looking over our behaviours, language, processes and systems with an analytical lens to confront some home truths, as discomforting as it might be. For example, understanding research staff demographics and recognising who is participating and succeeding, and more importantly, who is not, and then acting to change those dynamics in our research environments.

To truly promote diversity and inclusion across research environments at King’s, we need to listen, learn, be honest, brave and bold, and I hope that I can provide the confidence and leadership we need to catalyse the change we are looking for.

Is there anyone out there who does not want to be heard? As an academic finding a way to engage others with your work is vital. When we sit in a research seminar listening to an eloquent and illuminating speaker we typically enjoy the experience so much more than we do with those who haven’t quite mastered the art. When we read a beautifully crafted description of research, be it a paper, monograph or book, we derive almost as much pleasure from the writing as we do from the content. My experience of such papers, and yes, even as a scientist I have read some like this, is that I have instantly wanted to meet the author. How many of us wish that we could be that speaker or writer!

The Research Staff Event 2017 is all about finding the secret to effective communication, with fellow academics about your research, with others within the university setting about how we work together and with the wider world about the work we do and the benefits of that work to society. There will be workshops at the event addressing a wide variety of areas and modes of communication. There will be something to suit all, and also to explore new methods that could be your key to unlocking the door to more effective communication and new audiences.

To add an extra challenge and enhance your opportunity to put your learning into practice we are including a competition for the best communication produced on the day. The challenge is to produce an example of communication that gets the message across succinctly and effectively. In the afternoon workshops we invite you to work towards producing this example. It could be a series of tweets, a blog, a film, a written text, a busk, a public address, a film or anything else that can be submitted and viewed in two minutes or less.

The criteria for judging your competition entries are that your communication piece be engaging, informative and compulsive. Judging will happen at the event by our panel of experts and prizes awarded to the winning team. After the event we will upload all competition entries onto the event website so you can all view them. We may even run a people’s choice version!

Workshop places are limited. To ensure that you are able to submit an entry in your preferred medium, register for the Research Staff Event and your choice of workshop now! Deadline for registration is 10am on Wednesday 23rd August.

After the event we will be offering up to £2,000 through our King’s Community Fund for projects aimed at getting your voice as research staff heard within King’s. This could be, for example but not limited to, research into how we communicate, events or policy making. More information about the fund and a workshop on internal communication that will be held before the application deadline will be posted after the Research Staff Event on our website and in our newsletter.

The KoLo project envisioned the creation of a lightweight site which King’s staff could use to find others with similar research or professional interests, supporting knowledge exchange and collaboration. This was an ambitious aim, especially given the commercial development costs of these types of applications.

For all of us involved in this project it has been a learning experience, one that we have relished and which is not over yet. When we submitted our application after the first Research Staff event, we were just three people from three different departments who had just happened to be in the same event session and had ended up gathered around the same post-it note. While all of us had experience working collaboratively on projects, none of us had experience leading a project of this type. We learned to things very quickly – you need to be inventive (and lucky) with the budgeting and your timetable will get thrown off by events that you can’t control.

We were able to put in a successful bid because of the support that we received from outside our immediate team: the King’s Digital Lab, who we planned to work with on the hosting and backend development, were interested enough in our project that they were willing to put some of their own resources into the development, covering the difference between their normal quote and the amount that we had available, and the Department of Digital Humanities and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities who both offered funding for the project, which allowed us to lower the amount that we were applying for from the King’s Community Fund.

One of the principles of the Community Fund was that you needed to minimise the effect on your normal daily work. The King’s Digital Lab was able to take on the back-end development and hosting but we couldn’t afford for them to also take on the front-end development. This meant trying to work out ways to get more people involved without increasing our budget. Our answer came in the form of some really great student interns, to whom we are very grateful for all their hard work: MA students from the Department of Digital Humanities: Silvia Corbara, who lead on front-end design and workflow, Meizhi Wei and Jiachen Cui, who were involved with design and headed the front-end development, and our KURF research Fellow Phillip Sakellarios, a BA Geography student, who is working on HTML development and data analytics.

Where are we now? We have the basic data model and webpage designs that we will use for the prototype, we received our ethics approval (Ref: LRS-16/17-4992) which means that we can use real data, we have a back-end system based on the datamodel waiting for the front-end to be ready, we ran a small workshop for our developers going over how to use JavaScript so they create the connection between the front and back ends and we have started creating the pages based on the designs. We have also had expressions of interest from our project from people across the university who have expressed interest in the project, some of whom have been collecting data with similar idea in mind.

The project, or at least this stage, will be over soon and, for some of us in the project team, the end of our time at King’s as well. We hope, before we go, to leave the seed to something bigger which will be of use to research staff, academics, professional services staff and all the people at the university who might find something great when chance meetings happen to throw them together around a (digital) post-it.

]]>https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/researchstaff/2017/08/11/the-kings-collaborator-locator-kolo-summer-roundup/feed/0People in this Country have had enough of Expertshttps://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/researchstaff/2017/08/04/people-in-this-country-have-had-enough-of-experts/
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/researchstaff/2017/08/04/people-in-this-country-have-had-enough-of-experts/#commentsFri, 04 Aug 2017 13:27:51 +0000http://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/researchstaff/?p=183Continue reading →]]>Written by Dr Amy Birch, Research Staff Development Consultant

Whatever you think of this quote, it’s undeniable that public scorn of ‘facts’ has had a major influence in policy and voting over the last few years. And yet, more academics are engaging with policymakers and MPs than ever before. We’re part of the initial discussion but never make it to the final argument and decision-making process. This, in part, has to do with the significant differences in communication in the academic field and political sphere – often we perceive that ‘selling something’ is a way of lying or manipulating facts whereas policy-makers are frustrated by academics relying on facts and data rather than giving their opinion. But persuasive arguments and good oratory need to appeal to both our rational and emotional side.

Learning how to debate can teach you skills that you may not be able to learn anywhere else – not just how to construct an argument, but how to think on your feet (and change your argument on the hoof), respect your audience, gauge emotion, and how to be persuasive and amiable (but not patronising). It will improve your public speaking skills and your ability to answer questions under pressure – something all academics have experience of! Not only that, but it encourages you to see the both sides of each argument as you can often be debating for a position that you personally oppose.

In the Research Staff Event on 5th September, you will get a unique opportunity to learn and practise your debating skills on a topic that can have a valid and significant impact on your life at King’s. We have chosen the topic ‘This house believes that King’s listens to its research staff’ to give you the opportunity to voice a reasoned argument about what you believe King’s are doing well to support research staff and also present arguments about what King’s can do to improve their support of research staff. This will be a debate amongst your peers – but we encourage you to use this opportunity to be open about your experiences and give constructive, reasoned opinions about what we can do better. Over the last year, the Centre for Research Staff Development have worked hard to support you with your professional development at King’s – by taking part in this debate you can let us know how we’re doing and what more we can do.

Participating in this debate will help you see the power of using rational, reasoned arguments and compelling evidence. It can instil a sense of poise and confidence and learn the skills of researching, organising, and presenting information in a compelling fashion. It will help you develop effective speech composition and delivery, and is an excellent skill to gain as a future leader.

For more information, please check out our Research Staff Event website and register to take part!

Getting your voice heard and understood is a fundamental part of life for most of us. As a research staff member, it couldn’t be more essential as your ideas, views, and the research you are undertaking will not only leave an imprint on King’s, but also on communities and societies across the UK and beyond. The Centre for Research Staff Development is delighted to welcome you to the Research Staff Event 2017, an event dedicated to inspire you to express your views and expertise creatively and effectively in a broad range of contexts.

What can you expect at the Event?

Keynote talks on various topics including historical contributions that researchers at King’s have made to society and how their voices were successfully and less successfully heard and how experts and universities are responding to the current post-truth climate in which individuals and groups that are most effective at misleading are often the ones to come out triumphant.

Workshops that will encourage you to consider different areas that you can apply your voice in, including ensuring that research staff are represented in communications across King’s, public engagement, consultancies and entrepreneurship, building your academic profile, and debates.

Workshops that will help you grasp novel skills to express your views and knowledge in a variety of ways, including using social media, writing for non-expert audiences, film, public speaking, and creative channels, such as competitions, fairs, festivals and busking.

At the core of the event will be a debate on the motion: This House Believes that King’s Listens to its Research Staff. One team will debate for the motion, while another team will debate against it. If you don’t sign up to participate in the debate, you will still have the opportunity to view the debate as a member of the audience and ask the debating teams questions.

Working with colleagues from across disciplines to test your newfound communication skills gained in workshops to create an entry for the Event competition and enter the running for the competition prizes.

Why should you attend the Event?

It will offer you novel perspectives on areas you can promote your voice in using tools and communication streams you might not have considered before.

It will allow you to learn ways to amplify the collective voice of you and your colleagues as King’s research staff community.

It will hone your existing skills and allow you to gain new transferable, communication skills that you’ll be able to apply to whatever career path you pursue.

You will have the opportunity to build your network by meeting colleagues from different disciplines and engaging with professional services staff from various departments at King’s to find out how they can support you.

To break up your day-to-day routine and have fun! With the chance to mingle with new friends and potential future collaborators over lunch, participate in (or observe) an exciting debate, and challenge your skills in the competition, this event will offer something of value for everyone, no matter what your strengths or interests may be.

Learn more about the event and register here. The deadline to register is 10am on 23rd August. Workshops will be filled on a first come, first serve basis so you are encouraged to register early to get a place in your choice of workshops.

In case you need additional incentive to attend, here are some highlights from last year’s event to give you a taste of the enjoyable and stimulating day that we have lined up for you.

I’m sure that anyone working in research has heard their colleagues complain about the Research Excellence Framework (or REF). And if you’ve been reading this blog you’ll have seen a number of references to it. The REF is the most recent incarnation of the periodic assessment of research quality in UK universities that has happened every 6 or 7 years since 1986. The results of this assessment translate directly into how much money institutions get from the Government, so universities put a lot of effort into making good quality submissions. But many have criticised the exercise for introducing unnecessary competition, for its administrative burden, and for creating undue pressure on researchers.

Ahead of the REF that took place in 2014, HEFCE (the body responsible for formulating and running the REF) introduced an aspect of the exercise for assessing the “impact” of research. Whereas previous exercises had assessed research outputs (mostly publications) and research environment (the infrastructure and culture that supports research), they wanted a system for assessing how research makes things happen outside academia. The guidance published by HEFCE ahead of the last REF defined “impact” in brief as “an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia.” Universities were invited to submit case studies in largely narrative form that described how excellent research that they had demonstrably contributed to had generated this kind of impact. These case studies were then awarded scores on the basis of their “reach and significance” by panels of subject experts and the scores, in turn, made up 20% of a unit’s, and therefore an institution’s, overall “quality profile.”

This focus on research impact introduced by REF 2014 has of course generated differing opinions. Some have welcomed it, arguing that researchers are funded by public money and should therefore show how their work directly benefits the public who pay for them. But as with other aspects of REF, “impact” has come under fire. Some argue that it encourages applied over theoretical research, disadvantages those in precarious positions (such as contract research staff or ECRs), and creates cults of personality around certain impactful academic “stars.” Moreover, some have asked why researchers have been asked to demonstrate their impact when the same burden is not always placed on other activities also funded by public money. At the same time, there is often a recognition that the assessment of impact in REF 2014 has generated a large database of impact case studies (6,975 in fact), useful for demonstrating the tangible benefits of university research to those who might not necessarily be convinced of its intrinsic value.

Whatever is the case, it looks like the assessment of impact is here to stay. HEFCE recently held a consultation on the criteria for the next REF, scheduled to take place in 2021. Proposals for the assessment of impact in the future include: creating a unified definition with the UK Research Councils, introducing institutional- as well as unit-level impact case studies, and widening and deepening the sense of what research impact is. The preliminary results of this consultation are due any day now and we’ll know more once they’ve been announced. One thing we know for sure, though, is that the formal assessment of research impact is unlikely to go anywhere soon.